Most Popular Sina Weibo Posts are Contests

ByHoma Zaryouni ·

31 March 2014

Our Digital IQ Index: Beauty | China report found the country’s social media landscape fragmented and in flux. Players such as Renren and Tencent Weibo have fallen out of favor with Beauty brands that have not seen a payoff from being on these platforms. Benefit Cosmetics was one of the latest to exit Renren in January, and Gucci exited event platform Douban the same month. But Sina Weibo remains the dominant battlefield for Beauty in China with 94% of brands active on the platform. Beauty communities on Sina Weibo average 411,791 fans, and have higher engagement rates than on Facebook and Twitter.

Still, brands are shying away from costly investments on Sina Weibo (i.e. tabs that resemble Facebook apps) and looking for multiply fans and engagement via posts. A look at the most popular posts between September and December proves that contests are worthwhile investments; nine of the ten most popular posts were contests.

The two most shared posts were Olay’s, which also has the second largest Sina Weibo fan base after Avène. The top post encouraged fans to repost holiday wishes to win a bottle of Olay Regenerist designed by actress Gao Yuanyuan, and gathered 496,190 reposts and 126,521 comments. Nivea had third spot, with a contest asking users to share dry skin prevention tips to win a bottle of body wash. Mentholatum, Artistry, Sasa, L’Oréal Paris were other brands in the top ten.
Sina Weibo tabs have on average 8,000 users, and the five most popular posts on each brand page averaged 6,550 reposts and 2,700 comments. While the results are close, posts are far more cost-effective as they cost almost nothing to produce. Only half of brands on Sina Weibo currently have a tab, and we can expect that percentage to shrink even further.